Employees of Twitter have initiated a class lawsuit amidst new CEO Elon Musk’s plan to cut 3,700 jobs.
On Thursday, Cornet v. Twitter Inc., 22-cv-06857, was filed at the United States District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco), contending that the company’s decision to retrench the staff violates federal and California laws.
“We filed this lawsuit tonight in an attempt to make sure that employees are aware that they should not sign away their rights and that they have an avenue for pursuing their rights,” said Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney who filed the suit, to Bloomberg.
The suit cited the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which restricts large companies from eliminating jobs without at least 60 days of advance notice.
In their lawsuit, the staff asked the court to issue an order asking Mr Musk to obey the WARN Act and stop the company from forcing employees to sign documents that could give up their right to participate in litigation.
The suit followed mass layoffs by Mr Musk, as seen in an internal email from the social media company to staff.
“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” the email said. “By 9 AM PST on Friday, Nov. 4th, everyone will receive an individual email with the subject line: Your Role at Twitter.”
Last week, Mr Musk dissolved Twitter’s board of directors, leaving him as the ‘sole director’ of the social media giant.
Former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and several other top executives were the first to be sacked after Mr Musk completed the buyout ahead of the court-imposed deadline of October 28.
Ned Segal, the chief financial officer; Vijaya Gadde, the top legal and policy executive; and Sean Edgett, the general counsel, were also dismissed.
Last month, The Washington Post reported that Twitter’s current management intended to reduce the company’s payroll by about $800 million by the end of 2023, according to corporate documents and interviews with people familiar with the company’s deliberations.
The Post cited interviews and documents, adding that Mr Musk had told prospective investors that as part of his deal to buy Twitter, he would get rid of nearly 75 per cent of the company’s 7,500 workers.
